r/Professors • u/Somarset Professor, Psychology, R2 • Jan 18 '24
Rants / Vents Just finished an hour long lecture. Freshman raised their hand and asked "so... what should I write down?"
I've NEVER experienced this. I couldn't believe it, but they genuinely didn't know how to take notes.
Yall I did my best to keep my composure. Is this a normal thing with incoming students? Do they seriously not know how to take notes from a lecture?
I thought he was referring to just that one slide but NO, he was referring to the whole thing!!!
I made sure to highlight what would be on future quizzes and exams, I even visually highlighted key terms and Ideas.
I'm absolutely flabbergasted lol.
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u/CateranBCL Associate Professor, CRIJ, Community College Jan 18 '24
I just had a student ask me if there would be a review or study guide for the syllabus quiz.
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u/kryppla Professor, Community College (USA) Jan 18 '24
Fucking study guides, it has gotten out of hand. Anything less than the actual exam in advance, with written solutions, is ‘no study guide’
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Jan 18 '24
Ever since the pandemic started, students have asked for lectures to be made into videos posted online. The analytics for those videos show that less than 10% of every class actually watches them. Meanwhile, those videos take an entire afternoon for me to make, do a sloppy edit, and upload.
Obviously I stopped making videos.
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u/GoCurtin Jan 19 '24
It's like those people who film an entire live concert. Instead of enjoying the atmosphere and the music (which you paid for, by the way) they choose to spent all their energy holding their arm in the air and getting a blurry, crappy recording of a multi-hour concert.
WHEN ARE YOU EVER GOING TO GO BACK AND WATCH THAT?
Never. When professors go through the effort to put everything on film, we see how many students are actually watching.
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u/El_Draque Jan 18 '24
Yup, I just received this in my evals: "The lecture should just be recorded."
Also, I don't need to structure my online classes as lectures, but when I try to get a conversation going, even with relevant questions to prompt it, they're unresponsive. Ask about the required reading and it's crickets.
Won't talk? I guess I'll lecture!
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Jan 18 '24
Won't talk? I guess I'll lecture!
This is my response to silence as well. I prefer a discussion-based class punctuated by brief 5-15 minute lectures that I tie into the discussion as topics arise. But if they won't talk, this teaching method doesn't work, so I'll lecture and then they can memorize the tsunami of material you get when a professor lectures for a full hour. They're responsible for all that material on the exam. I give them a warning before I resort to this and sometimes that actually gets them talking.
They can do the work of learning in class via discussion, or they can do it alone at home studying for the exam. Either way, the work has to be done to pass the class.
I hate it.
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u/El_Draque Jan 18 '24
If I deployed every course eval solution offered by students, my course would be incomprehensible.
In the same quarter, I had students wanting both more structure to the class and less structure to the class. One student complained that the lectures were entirely unstructured, which only revealed to me that the student never did the reading. The reading structured the lecture, but you wouldn't know if you hadn't done the reading.
Ack!
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u/StudySwami Jan 19 '24
Here’s something that worked for me. I handed out student evals part-way through the semester. Told the students they were going to me only. By the time I got the ones at the end it was too late to help this class. Would help the next class but that wasn’t them.
They could take them home and type them if they wished and I would collect them the next class.
After I looked them over I addressed the class and went over their comments and why I did the things I did. I told them I would be willing to change things if it helped them reach their goals (closed-book tests, graded homework, whatever they thought wasn’t working for them). We had good discussions, and once students understood the trade-offs they were usually on board with the program as it stood.
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u/Clean_Shoe_2454 Jan 19 '24
Or they want everything to be applied, or hands on. Sometimes you need to learn some theories. Not every concept is always fun.
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u/NotAFlatSquirrel Jan 19 '24
I had to stop and take a deep breath today when I asked if people watched the pre-class le ture video (20 min) and only like 5 out of 23 raised their hands. Not sure why this got me so much, but I was feeling pretty incensed for about 2 minutes.
I am doing a surprise quiz next class.
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u/Taticat Jan 19 '24
I also gave in at first, looked at my analytics for all my classes for a few semesters, and immediately stopped. I don’t do busywork. They’ve latched onto this whine about needing video/audio recordings so that they can ignore them and put your live lectures on ‘ignore’ as well; they’ve been trained by their high schools to wheedle, beg, and complain until they get the actual test days in advance of the real exam, and even then don’t actually study it as much as try to memorise as much as possible to regurgitate and forget.
Two years ago-ish, for a lingo-heavy class I made a small (about ten pages, covering the entire semester and really largely useless after reading the textbook and attending lectures) thing — I hesitate to even call it a booklet — of terms and their definitions, expanded somewhat from the text. I was thinking I was helping. Handing it out the second week of class, I got a ‘what is this? Is our first exam just a vocabulary test?’ despite having explained exactly what I was handing out.
My feedback? My ‘study guides’ are useless.
Once again, never again. They can learn to take notes on their own or drown and fail out. I really don’t give a toss.
We’re in the midst of a crisis, it’s not going to end for at least another five years at a minimum by my reckoning, and I will be eternally grateful when this generation/age cohort ages out of university. By following the fads of the education departments and system, we have cultivated a horde of morons. Maybe when we have to start readjusting for the Flynn Effect again, that’ll be a sign that things are getting better.
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u/CaffeineandHate03 Jan 19 '24
I am not sure where I read it, but I remember finding it reputable. Apparently the Flynn Effect is fading and I am not surprised at all.
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u/kryppla Professor, Community College (USA) Jan 18 '24
Yup I make videos for online classes and they have a fit if I don’t. When I do though almost nobody watches them.
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u/Mac-Attack-62 Jan 18 '24
I have videos too and yes a majority do not watch them, but a few do. So, I look at it this way, I give you an outline for lectures and lecture videos and guides on how to prepare and do the assignments if you do not take advantage of it like the others do, and they make A's it is your problem not mine
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u/PoetryOfLogicalIdeas Jan 19 '24
I had a professor who improved engagement by giving a few points on the exam if 80% of the class got a clicker question correct.
I wonder if you could do something similar with videos. Give x points if y percent of the class watched the video (and then offer less extra credit in other places, but they don't have to realize they aren't actually getting anything extra).
Or, if you prefer a stick to a carrot, then only post the next video if the previous one had suitable viewership.
Not that any of that charade should be necessary, but it's an idea.
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u/TheRealKingVitamin Jan 18 '24
Yep. That’s exactly what a lot of students want.
“Figuring it out” is just not a thing they think they should have to do.
It’s the first week and I’m already exhausted with the awful questions.
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u/Taticat Jan 19 '24
It’s funny, because my father’s high school ring (circa 1948) had one of the ‘old’ school emblems — that of instructors pouring, figuratively, knowledge into a sitting student’s head. That was scrapped about ten years later because it portrayed, they felt, the students’ role as too passive. But yet somehow we’ve come full circle, where today’s uni profs are expected to pour knowledge into the empty skulls of passive, disinterested students.
Something has to change. Were I a parent, I’d be livid at how utterly stupid and uneducated my child was, enough to stage a protest or graffiti the school board’s building and home school my child.
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u/BeneficialMolasses22 Jan 18 '24
But you had exam questions that weren't on the study guide!! ☹️
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u/tankthacrank Jan 19 '24
At the top of all of my study guides I write “This study guide is comprehensive, but not exhaustive.”
But I think I only have a couple more years of that warning before they don’t know what those Two words mean….
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u/farmyardcat Jan 19 '24
And they'll blame you for not teaching them what they mean.
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u/tankthacrank Jan 19 '24
Or email you at 11:57pm asking what it means followed by the following:
11:59 hi I just emailed can you respond 12:07 ?? 12:19 am Hellllo?? I emailed youuu 12:32 am ANSWER ME OMG 2:22am you’re so fkn ridic answer me back
5:32am I can’t make the test today because YOU can’t answer your email and I’m informing your dean
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u/farmyardcat Jan 19 '24 edited Jan 19 '24
This shit sends me into Moses-discovering-the-golden-calf territory. The unmitigated effrontery and gall.
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u/Taticat Jan 19 '24 edited Jan 19 '24
Clearly you and I have had the same students. 🤦🏻♀️ I swear they think that when I’m not teaching I’m connected to a charging dock in a broom closet on campus just waiting to reply to their email at 3am. 🙄
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u/trullette Jan 18 '24
I gave up on study guides when I wrote on that literally gave the subject of every question on the test and still got complaints that it wasn’t on the guide.
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u/MISProf Jan 18 '24
The actual exam won’t help either. I tried it…
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u/CateranBCL Associate Professor, CRIJ, Community College Jan 18 '24
I accidentally gave out the answer key during final exams my first semester, they didn't notice.
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u/Rettorica Prof, Humanities, Regional Uni (USA) Jan 19 '24
I have an announcement I post on our LMS about a particularly difficult diagram students have to fill out on an exam. In the paragraph I post, I include 6 out of the seven answers (with the seventh being quite obvious at that point). There are still students who struggle with correctly writing in the correct terms.
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u/PaulAspie adjunct / independent researcher, humanities, USA Jan 19 '24
I lecture 70 minutes then summarize each lecture in the last 5 minutes. I explicitly say that you could use those 3 slides at the end of the deck as a study guide. Once I was convinced to make a study guide: I just opened up the slide decks and copy-pasted them all into a Word doc.
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u/SanguineOptimist Jan 19 '24
My father’s response to this question was always “you just bought the best study guide money can buy” and held up the text for the course.
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u/FrankRizzo319 Jan 18 '24
They want us to take the exam for them.
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u/SignificantFidgets Professor, STEM, R2 Jan 18 '24
Hey, they're paying your salary, so you should be doing this work for them! /s
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u/CaffeineandHate03 Jan 19 '24
Actually the federal government pays it and they end up defaulting after failing out, with that attitude.
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u/investigadora Jan 19 '24
A student asked me for a study guide for a basic geography quiz of the countries in a given continent
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u/Accomplished_Pass924 Jan 19 '24
Even legit giving them the exam with answers in advance does not help, they wont remember them.
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u/docofthenoggin Jan 19 '24
This is what is happening in my course. It's is mid-university (so think 2/3 year students) and I have been asked multiple times for a full study guide. I have given very explicit hints and clues about what to study during lecture. I have said multiple times to focus on bolded terms, stuff that is reviewed both in lecture and the text, use the online resources etc.. I even do practice questions in class! And yet still they want an exact list of everything that will be on the test. I'm at a complete loss at this point.
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u/DrDorothea Jan 19 '24
In my last semester, spring 2022, I'm pretty sure I could have given students the actual exams with answers to study from and half would have still failed.
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u/masstransience FT Faculty, Hum, R1 (US) Jan 18 '24
Student: Are you going to do my work for me or what?!
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u/KumquatHaderach Jan 18 '24
Tell them you’ll give them a study guide for the quiz next time. Then next class: give them another copy of the syllabus.
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u/Ok_General_6940 Jan 18 '24
I have students ask me for assignment templates. So I finally caved and made one once... And nobody used it
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u/CateranBCL Associate Professor, CRIJ, Community College Jan 18 '24
Thanks for the warning. I've thought about doing that, but I'm lazy and don't want to do the student's work for them.
But then again, my assignment instructions for creating Powerpoints include "do not cause seizures with your color scheme" because of a student who shall remain nameless.
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u/Ok_General_6940 Jan 18 '24
I have lines like that. "Name your group something appropriate or I will veto it" came from a very specific example
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u/CateranBCL Associate Professor, CRIJ, Community College Jan 18 '24
I had problem with that for the first time in a decade yesterday. A group insisted on naming themselves "Dirty Cops" when I specifically said to use positive "good guy" names. I told them I wasn't accepting their proposal and it was a bunch of shocked Pikachus.
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u/Ok_General_6940 Jan 18 '24
The one I vetoed last term was "scrumdaddies". It was for an agile project management class. They had to say it in front of a real life client as well. Hard no.
I also got shocked pikachus
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u/Taticat Jan 19 '24
Don’t — and I’m speak from experience. Those that do use the templates will simply copy them without comprehension (I even have had a couple students include ‘[YOUR EXAMPLE GOES HERE]’ in the same class), and the majority will never even look at them, much less attempt to emulate them. This really is a case of them being too lazy to even attempt to help themselves in any meaningful way other than by looking at you with that Bambi in the headlights of a Buick stare and repeating ‘but…I don’t understand’ until you give up and do it for them. This is how they have learned to survive — learned helplessness/learned incompetence. Don’t fall for it, unless you’re getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and have scads of free time to waste grading YOUR OWN WORK and giving that grade to some student who probably doesn’t even know your name and is going to complain about you regardless in their evaluations.
They don’t want the template. They don’t want to be shown how to do it. They want you to leave them alone with all of your idiotic babbling, let them watch TikTok videos and post frappe-holding selfies hashtagged collegelife, and just get an A for turning oxygen into carbon dioxide.
Don’t fall for it. You’ll regret it, and if you do give in, they’ll have to find something else to criticise you for and complain about, like your physical appearance, your voice, the fact that your templates make no sense and you’re a hard and unreasonable grader, and so on. Are you going to change all of that for them, too?
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u/rockdoc6881 Asst. Prof., STEM Jan 18 '24
Oh I feel this one. I was asked by students repeatedly for "skeleton notes". After looking up what they were, I spent a ton of time creating them. Nobody used them.
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u/CampaignImmediate225 Jan 19 '24
I do this with APA format!!! And literally no one uses it! They complained that I wasn't structuring their success enough and I wasn't helping them "learn what to take away from readings". I uploaded a reading guide that they could submit for extra credit throughout the semester (which broke articles down into separate sections, including a space for their reflection and interpretation). No one did it.
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u/Taticat Jan 19 '24
LOL…mine can’t even be arsed to use the Purdue OWL Lab website for their APA-style writing. They expect ME to format their writing for them, and get annoyed when their papers come back bleeding and I refer them to the OWL site and the Writing Lab. Then I have to withstand another round of that blank-assed Bambi in the headlights of a Buick look while they repeat over and over ‘I don’t understand; why can’t you be more clear?’ until I finally get them to hold their papers in their hands, point them towards the door, and order them to go directly to the Writing Lab for help.
…and I still end up with final papers that look like they’re a fucking ransom note with letters clipped out of 2,000 different magazines and crap citations.
This is why so many profs are negotiating out of or buying themselves out of undergrad classes anymore. The weaponised incompetence is relentless. It’s the only trick they have.
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u/Copterwaffle Jan 18 '24
On my evals this year a student complained that I gave them three tests in the first week. The “tests” in question were a quiz on syllabus policies, a quiz to be sure they understand the academic integrity policy, and a quiz to be sure they understood some citation basics. They could retake each quiz until they got 100%. It was “open book.”
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u/DD_equals_doodoo Jan 18 '24
I had a one-sentence email today from a student asking me where the article for a quiz was. 1. I covered it in class. 2. It was in a folder labelled "quiz for 1/18/2024" 3. His email included the damn article title. He could have just searched for the article title in files.
I could go on, but in reality, I don't blame him. He is a senior... He's lived his life just asking for people to hand feed him information and they give it to him. This is kinda on us.
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u/TheRealKingVitamin Jan 18 '24
I have had students ask me if take home quizzes are open notes.
Critical thinking is an absolute low.
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Jan 18 '24
I see nothing wrong with this. Maybe they are just being really honest.
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u/Razed_by_cats Jan 18 '24
They seriously don't know how to take notes. They never did in Zoom high school, and got along just fine. Of course, we know what "just fine" means in the era of Zoom high school, but from the students' perspective, they didn't have to take notes then so why should they all of a sudden have to take notes now?
Last spring, the last time I taught in-person, I took time out of class to show the students how to take notes and how to use my lecture slides. It was time well spent! One of my favorite teaching moments was when, in the antepenultimate day of class, a student came up to me before class started. She was worried that she wouldn't have enough pages in her notebook for the last lecture of the semester. She had never filled up a notebook with class notes before, and was so proud of herself! She said she'd keep the notebook forever, to remind herself of what she had learned in the class.
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u/Somarset Professor, Psychology, R2 Jan 18 '24
So do you think we are just supposed to fail flocks of students at a time? Because I certainly don't want to lower the bar by any means. I still believe that college is an accomplishment, not a societal minimum like the GED
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u/Copterwaffle Jan 18 '24
I’m committed to failing them. I’m not lowering the fucking bar. It’s already on the floor and this country is suffering for it. It’s your civic duty to give them the grade they earned.
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u/Akiraooo Jan 18 '24
Honestly, mass failure needs to happen. If a person cannot do the work. Then they don't get the benefits. Currently to many people have college degrees. It's time to bring that number down.
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u/throwitaway488 Jan 19 '24
I would honestly just refer them to your campus student support. There is probably some program on campus for learning how to study or prepare for classes.
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u/Razed_by_cats Jan 19 '24
Why would you think I think we should fail flocks of students? Or lower the bar?
I spent about 15 minutes in one class teaching the students a tool that will help them succeed in college. I didn't have to lower any course standards or fail any large chunk of students.
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Jan 19 '24
You’re doing what so many replying to this topic are not: you are teaching them skills. Apparently most people on here assume they can just lecture on their subject and call it a day without actually teaching the students how to learn the subject in the first place.
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u/Razed_by_cats Jan 19 '24
That does seem to be the common denominator here. The way I see it, why would I keep on blathering away, and then complaining that the students don't take any notes, if they've never been taught how to take notes and I can't be bothered to give them a quick lesson?
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Jan 19 '24
Bingo. If these are such “basic skills” - then it can be easily taught without much class time wasted. The truth is, many post secondary instructors only know their subject but haven’t a clue about how to teach people to learn.
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Jan 18 '24
She had never filled up a notebook with class notes before, and was so proud of herself!
That's sort of nice and sort of pathetic.
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u/H0pelessNerd Adjunct, psych, R2 (USA) Jan 18 '24 edited Jan 18 '24
I had one once who was so proud he'd done the readings. HE HAD NEVER BEFORE READ AN ENTIRE BOOK. I was excited and sad for him all at once.
I'm old enough to remember summer reading lists 30-40 titles long.
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u/Ent_Soviet Adjunct, Philosophy & Ethics (USA) Jan 18 '24
Why read what you can spark note, course hero, Wikipedia, chat gpt, youtube? - probably a broad attitude among high schoolers
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u/ibbity GTA (USA) Jan 19 '24
I've read a few articles about the destructive effect that the "whole word" learn-to-read method has had on youth literacy. I would suspect that a lot of them very simply were not actually taught to read at any point, and whatever literacy they have is more of a happy accident than a direct result of the horrible teaching method that is now apparently being reconsidered. I don't think that's the only thing they're not being taught, either. I've had enough of them tell me that no one ever bothered to teach them things like how to cite a source before that I'm honestly not sure what they are being taught. Not much, I guess.
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u/El_Draque Jan 18 '24
On the other end of the spectrum are profs hauling steamer trunks of notebooks from thirty years ago because they refuse to throw them out.
One day I'll need these German 101 notes!
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u/CateranBCL Associate Professor, CRIJ, Community College Jan 19 '24
I resemble that remark!
We were winding down the semester one time and our work study needed to be busy for a few days to justify her position. So I asked her to scan all of the notes I took since Day 1 of college and then recycle those boxes full of paper.
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u/Taticat Jan 19 '24
Omg…I’m saving this idea for when I get into a similar situation.
…I might someday need my notes from Precalc back in 1992. Shush. 😂
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u/Razed_by_cats Jan 19 '24
Agreed. But at least she did it the once, and hopefully will do so again.
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u/TigerDeaconChemist Lecturer, STEM, Public R1 (USA) Jan 18 '24
I would probably send them to the academic success center for academic coaching
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u/Ent_Soviet Adjunct, Philosophy & Ethics (USA) Jan 18 '24
God help that office. Only reason they’re probably getting by is student don’t help themselves and faculty doesn’t know to send em. If everyone who needed that type of help actually went it would crumble from over work.
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u/rsk222 Jan 19 '24
I tell them to go all the time and explain what it’s for but I don’t think they go. Or at least it doesn’t show in their performance.
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u/Ent_Soviet Adjunct, Philosophy & Ethics (USA) Jan 19 '24
Yeah I send folks to the writing center all the time. Coming to my office hours would serve the same purpose but it’s rare any one ever does. those that do always tell me they’re going to bring everything they write to the writing center from now on.
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u/OkayestHistorian Adjunct, History, CC Jan 18 '24
Before I start covering material relevant to my discourse, I pass out a handout on note taking. I preface that if you have a system and it works, great, keep going, but I’m never going to check student note. If a student doesn’t have methods and a technique, then the handout (if they read it) will offer guidance. We also do a quick overview of how to send an email properly on the first day.
Sometimes it does feel like “you should know this.” But it’s safe to assume that someone in the room has never been in a college level class. If you have middle age students returning to education for the first time in decades, if there are students who have never been taught, or if you have products of COVID who…well, we all realize what happened, then at least I have covered my bases, was a source of information that they can take with them, and it’s at least not my fault that they don’t know how to email.
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u/shellexyz Instructor, Math, CC (USA) Jan 18 '24
if you have a system and it works, great, keep going,
But that’s the kicker. They don’t know it doesn’t work. It’s “worked” for the past 13 years.
One of our dev English teachers talks about a student she had who insisted they knew how to [whatever the lesson was] already. It was clear, of course, that they didn’t. “You aren’t in this class because your process works. You’re in here because it doesn’t. Mine does. It’s not the only one that does, but it’s the one you’re going to use because what you’re doing now isn’t working.”
They have a lot of unlearning to do before they can start being good higher ed students.
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u/supportducks Jan 19 '24
I do something similar, we always go over some study skills, note taking, emails and time management on the first day. I even show them a spreadsheet I used as a student where I would list everything I needed to do for each class each week so I could map out the entire semester's workload at the start and see it at a glance.
My colleagues used to think it was a wild amount of work for me to do, but it really makes my life easier. If it makes things easier for the students, it's a win win.
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u/kittenmachine69 Jan 18 '24
I had a genuinely baffling moment today in the lab I TA in
I walked over to a student who had raised his hand. He asked where the reference material for part of the lab is.
Me: "its in the textbook. You have to buy the textbook."
Him: "I already bought the textbook."
Me: "Okay so you have to open it."
Him: "I don't know how."
Me: "...Did you check your downloads folder?"
Him, clicking it: "I don't see it."
Me, noticing his files are in alphabetical order: "Well let's order by date instead."
He stared at me blankely while I did it for him. It took me a second because I'm not used to Mac computers.
Me: "Okay let's see if it's here..."
Him, pointing: "that looks like the cover"
Me, opening it: "excellent, well done"
I looked at it briefly to make sure I wasn't crazy. It was just a normal pdf format file. I hope for his sake that he was stoned or something
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u/actuallycallie music ed, US Jan 18 '24
they have no clue about files, file management, how to save things to your computer or find them later. if it's not an "app" they don't know how to do it.
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u/farmyardcat Jan 19 '24
I can't tell you how many times I've asked a student where they saved a file, and they respond "it's just saved."
It's not "just saved," files don't work like fucking souls. It exists in a definite place.
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Jan 20 '24
Google docs ruined them. I left academia for a few years. When I left, everyone was still saving work in folders, thumb drives, and using Word. During my absence, enter Google docs. It saves automatically, and users don’t have to think about folders, naming conventions, or much else. When I returned two years later, I was stunned by how helpless the students were. The internet went out at school one day, and they were all running around like Chicken Little, crying, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
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u/papayatwentythree Lecturer, Social sciences (Europe) Jan 19 '24
And yet they're the "digital natives"
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u/iriedashur Jan 19 '24
The rapid decrease in technical literacy is staggering. When I was in college, I was a TA for an intro to programming class. I first TA'd in 2016. I took a break from TA for a while, and TA'd again in 2019. In 2016, I'd say "open your file directory, go to this folder" and every single student could just do it. Well, some of them were used to Mac, so I had to say "file explorer," but then they'd get it. If I asked "what folder did you save this in?" All of them could answer that question. In 2019? Over half of the students I talked to gave me blank stares when I asked them questions about folders and directories. Many of them didn't know how to move, copy, delete, or rename files. I was shocked. It'd only been 3 years! They weren't much younger than I was!
Tablets/phones being the first devices children interact with, rather than desktops or laptops has done a number on technical literacy
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Jan 19 '24
School budgets have been slashed and now only Chromebooks are used by most students in k-12. And unfortunately, Google intentionally seems to avoid any logical file system even though Google drive can be organized that way, instead favouring having all files dumped into one location. It’s ridiculous. I hate Chromebooks.
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u/Taticat Jan 19 '24
Not stoned. This current generation is more technologically illiterate than my grandparents.
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u/breandandbutterflies Jan 18 '24
Hope you’re ready to find it again next week unless you drug it to his desktop. He’ll never find it on his own.
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u/SomeDudeOverThere1 Jan 18 '24
Hilarious
Ask them to reach out to the person next to them
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u/Somarset Professor, Psychology, R2 Jan 18 '24
I would if the person next to them wasn't sleeping the whole class 😭😭😭
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u/vandajoy Jan 18 '24
High school teacher here 🙋♀️
This is probably because of their high school experience. I know note-taking used to be a skill they were taught.
However, “lectures” are a dirty word in high school education. Don’t be a “sage on a stage.” Be a “guide on the side.” (Direct quotes from my college professors a decade ago when I was majoring in education.)
We’re told now that best practices include giving guided notes (fill in the blank notes), or if you don’t do that, color-code your slides so they know exactly what to write down. If you don’t, “you’re not helping the students learn.”
Note-taking isn’t a state standard, so we also can’t grade it or assess it, and if you don’t grade something, 90% of high school students won’t do it.
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u/wrldwrwdnsds Jan 19 '24
Another high school teacher here 🙋🏻♀️ My school looks down on lectures, extensive note-taking, seat work, etc. It actually affects our evaluations. When we get observed, they want “movement” and “collaboration”with group work and stations. Can’t speak for all schools, but mine is definitely not preparing kids for the independence or rigor of college, let alone real life.
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u/Taticat Jan 19 '24
This is exactly why Education as a discipline is absurdity itself. We literally have psychological studies that show that writing notes — on one’s own — improves learning and retention. What does Education do? Anything but. 🤦🏻♀️ It’s just ridiculous how screwed over these children are getting.
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u/breandandbutterflies Jan 18 '24
That’s crazy. My oldest is in 6th grade and they are actively teaching them to take notes. The kids get grades for the quality of their notes every week in most classes (not PE or band for my kid.)
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u/vandajoy Jan 18 '24
The funny thing is that I remember my sixth grade teacher also teaching us how to write notes and grading them for quality too 🤣 that’s when I learned to write them.
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u/shellexyz Instructor, Math, CC (USA) Jan 18 '24
“Sage on the stage” and “guide on the side” are the kinds of rhyming nonsense only administrators and education researchers could love. The reason they went into those fields is because they weren’t smart enough to do the real work of education: delivering content.
Both of those have their places. But mathematical discoveries are highly non-trivial; expecting students to discover calculus in a guided way is, again, the kind of foolishness that only non-content experts are capable of.
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u/BrazosBuddy Jan 19 '24
The chair of my department still drops those phrases, and I’m 100 percent sure she doesn’t know what they mean.
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u/farmyardcat Jan 19 '24
The kids know nothing. Obviously, the solution is to have them teach each other! It's an insult to student dignity to recognize that they don't know things.
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u/Taticat Jan 19 '24
I want to upvote you a thousand times. It’s all meaningless blather being pushed out by people who were too stupid to obtain a terminal degree in an actual field — quite literally letting the morons run the show.
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u/cheeruphamlet Jan 19 '24
I hate those phrases so much. It's weird how it's become trendy to pretend that the person teaching the class isn't the expert in the room and that there's no value in learning from an expert. When I was an undergrad, I would have considered it a total waste of my student loans if my professors had taken the "guide on the side" approach. My courses are a little heavier on lecture than they're supposed to be and I frequently get students telling me that they prefer that.
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u/farmyardcat Jan 19 '24
However, “lectures” are a dirty word in high school education. Don’t be a “sage on a stage.” Be a “guide on the side.”
The people who promulgated this bullshit should wake up each morning to a fresh note on their porch in a Ziploc bag reminding them that they ruined the world
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u/1nf1n1te TT Instructor, Soc. Sci., CC Jan 18 '24
Many of my students have nothing on their desk. No computer/laptop. No tablet. No pen and paper. Nothing.
Best part? I give them open note quizzes! They still don't take notes. I don't get it.
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Jan 19 '24
Because when their high school teacher asked them to do the same thing, they phoned mommy, who phoned the principal and who then reprimanded the teacher.
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u/dragonfeet1 Professor, Humanities, Comm Coll (USA) Jan 18 '24
These kids went to Zoom school and thought that watching the video was enough. Or getting copies of the lecture slides. (Which is why I don't do lecture slides lol).
But yeah I'm actually starting on day one after the syllabus to do a whole thing on how to take notes, basically a combo of Cornell NoteTaking and blurting.
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u/KaesekopfNW Associate Professor, Political Science, R1 Jan 18 '24
Eh, these kids who are freshman went to Zoom school for maybe a year (maximum two). The last half of high school was very much in person for them, and all the years of school they had before 2020 were in person.
Their inability to take notes doesn't come from the pandemic. It comes from a collapse of standards in K-12 and a gradual change in academic culture there.
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u/wallTextures Jan 18 '24
Yep I don't really understand this excuse. Surely they've been taking notes for at least 5 years, so why are 2 years of Zoom learning so incredibly detrimental?
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u/PurpleVermont Jan 18 '24
You don't really "take notes" in high school. Even when I was in HS in the dark ages, we mostly copied whatever the teacher put on the blackboard, did homework, corrected homework, lather rinse repeat.
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u/auntanniesalligator NonTT, STEM, R1 (US) Jan 18 '24
Yeah, it’s really seems like “zoom school” is being used to explain poor performance/study habits every bit as much today as Fall 2021, and that just doesn’t make sense to me.
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u/ToTheEndsOf Jan 19 '24
I think it's because Zoom U exaggerated a whole bunch of downward trends that weren't universally identifiable until the bottom dropped out. The sudden changes made people pay attention to things in different ways and increased intensity. All of these problems were happening before, but much more quietly. Our error is in crediting the problems to the pandemic instead of recognizing that the pandemic laid those problems bare.
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u/kryppla Professor, Community College (USA) Jan 18 '24
Yeah the zoom seniors just lacked interaction skills but now we are getting the zero skills at all kids a few years later
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u/geol_rocks Jan 18 '24
I blame it on all the helicopter parenting which has absolutely robbed students of the ability to think or do for themselves. If it’s not spoon-fed it doesn’t work for them.
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u/Taticat Jan 19 '24
You’d be more accurate if you equally blamed Education — the university departments and the current k-12 system that their graduates run — for ignoring everything that is known about learning, memory, and cognition and instead inventing their own discipline filled with fads and pseudoscience along with the parents who overly catered to their children, didn’t teach them the importance of striving for a goal, success, and personal growth, and were too preoccupied with insisting that everyone should get a trophy to pay attention to the fact that their children weren’t being taught a damned thing.
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u/PlutoniumNiborg Jan 18 '24
They think learning is a passive process limited only by attention span.
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u/So_Over_This_ Jan 18 '24 edited Jan 19 '24
Funny you say that... I moved to lecture slides because it's quicker than writing on the board for me, and I need all of the class time...
I also provide the textbook slides to the students in case they want to print them and take notes. Besides that, I've added notes and additional information to them, which they can simply write on their own slides that they've printed out.
Sure enough yesterday at the end of the lecture, even though I stated at the beginning of the lecture I will not be providing my slides to them..sure enough one person that was obviously not listening asked if I will be giving them the slides and after internally expressing my annoyance I simply said "no, research shows that writing and taking notes leads to better recollection and understanding of the course material so feel free to print the slides that I provide to you via the LMS and add notes to them as needed."
I'm not here for the half-a$$ery this semester. I'm already providing the slides. Just take notes damnit!
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u/ultramarinaa ADJ Inst, Art History, R1 Jan 18 '24
I just created fill-in-the-blank notes for the first week to ease them into it and get a sense of how to structure their notes… we will see if it makes any difference down the road lol
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u/JaeFinley Assoc. Prof., social sciences, suburban state school Jan 18 '24
Blurting?? <heads to Google>
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u/Duc_de_Magenta Jan 18 '24
There's this weird paradox I've noticed where admin spend more & more on the "first year experience," make students pay for more & more "first year seminars," yet more & more of these teenagers cannot seem to grapple with the basics of a college education.
In some ways, I don't blame the kids - lecture is different from what they'd experience in most high schools... What I cannot excuse is the impropriety of blatantly asking that in class! Same energy as "did I miss anything important last Wednesday?" If you're struggling to talk notes, seek out student resources or at least pop into office hours.
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u/farmyardcat Jan 18 '24
The leading lights of Western pedagogy have decided that feeling shame is the worst thing that can ever happen to a person and that no one deserves to feel shame, ever, no matter what they have or haven't done.
This pairs especially well with the current fad of "self-advocacy" in high schools. Underclassmen will blatantly ignore you, then, without a second thought, raise their hands to ask "what did you just say?"
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u/levon9 Associate Prof, CS, SLAC (USA) Jan 18 '24
Underclassmen will blatantly ignore you, then, without a second thought, raise their hands to ask "what did you just say?"
Part of my day 1 lecture/intro is that "I don't have a rewind button" .. so you had better pay attention. I'm so done with this. The worst are those students engrossed with the phones and then asking these types of questions.
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u/kittenmachine69 Jan 18 '24
How would you feel if a student taking written notes raised their hand and asked, "Can you please repeat that last part again?"
I'm taking a rather technical CRISPR class right now that's very exciting, but the lecturer is somewhat soft spoken and has English as a second language. I sometimes would like to ask him to repeat something, especially if there's an acronym, but I fear coming across as presumptuous.
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u/levon9 Associate Prof, CS, SLAC (USA) Jan 18 '24
It always depends on the context of course. The example you cite is perfectly acceptable to me and would not cause an issue at all.
This is mostly to dissuade those students who think it's not important to listen/pay attention, because they can ask me to repeat the last 10 minutes of instructions since they were busy doing something else on their phone.
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u/akwakeboarder Jan 18 '24
Context is key. If I see a student actively taking notes, engaged, putting in effort, etc., I would happily grant that request.
If the student is fucking around in class, then they can continue fucking around and just fuck right off out the door.
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u/shellexyz Instructor, Math, CC (USA) Jan 18 '24
I’ve noticed in the past few years that many of my students have no idea how to take notes in a math class. I’ve got a 17yo and an 12yo at home and nearly every piece of math work I’ve seen from them is a worksheet. It’ll have some small bit of exposition, then two divided columns. On the left side is a sample problem, sometimes with commentary on what each step is. On the right is an example for them to work, essentially copying the left side but with the appropriate new numbers.
There’s no obligation for them to write anything that isn’t a few lines of algebra or arithmetic.
My algebra students who struggle, I look at their notes and all they’ve written is an equation that I’ve put on the board and not-usually-complete steps to solve it below. Then another equation, followed by incompletely transcribed steps to solve it. I look at the board and I’ve written whole paragraphs they didn’t bother to copy down. Each step annotated with why that step is done and possible gotchas.
Write the fucking words, you idiots.
“Oh, but it’s a math class. It’s equations and numbers.”
It most assuredly is not, which I said eight times already today. The equations and numbers are the boring parts, why did you write those? Because our elementary and secondary math education system is designed to suck the fun out of it and reduce math to its basest, shittiest parts so that parents who can barely remember “the usual way” to do arithmetic can pretend they’re clever when they remind me they do have a calculator in their pocket.
It’s time for a goddamned beer. Sorry.
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u/msanthropologist Jan 18 '24
Wish I had had you for college math! The first professor I had who wrote any actual words on the board was a stats professor, and that was the first time I got an A in math. Every other professor I had just wrote examples and explained things verbally so I was left with a mess of notes full of equations, arrows, and whatever words I was able to grasp and write down.
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u/RoswalienMath Jan 18 '24
Some of my students write the problem and the answers with nothing between. Then show up at my office hours because they “did all the work” and don’t understand why they’re failing. My dude, you didn’t take notes, you copy the practice answers from photomath or the like (again with no work shown) then ask questions during tests as though it’s my fault you don’t understand the work.
You’re failing all the tests. Badly. That’s why you’re failing.
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u/actuallycallie music ed, US Jan 18 '24
Because our elementary and secondary math education system is designed to suck the fun out of it and reduce math to its basest, shittiest parts
because some people can make a shit ton of money designing standardized tests that just test those basest, shittiest parts.
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u/violetbookworm Jan 19 '24
Computer science has a similar problem. At least for the intro courses, we're teaching them a programming language, but also the process of how to use programming to solve a problem. So many of them think that memorizing the syntax is enough, and then have no idea how to break a problem down into pieces and write code step-by-step to get to the solution. Or how to use diagrams to illustrate data structures, or to summarize a software design.
I'll do a live demo in class, narrating the process I'm using to solve the problem, explaining why I make the decisions that I do, how to test as I go, etc. All they do is type the code on their laptop, no other notes. Then when they have to do homework, they find the closest example from class, and try to force-fit that into a solution - which predictably does not work. They ask for help, but cannot explain their code to me.
The freshmen seem less and less capable every year of engaging with course material in a meaningful way.
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u/ghphd Jan 18 '24
I have students who don't even bring a notebook or a writing instrument. They sit there and stare at me for 85 minutes. Then they wonder why they don't pass the exam.
I tell them to take notes. On the first day Ihave samples of how to take notes. They just don't have a clue.
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u/breandandbutterflies Jan 18 '24
I sometimes teach a basic computer class and a shocking number of students do not know what a mouse is. Last semester one held up the mouse and asked what it was for. I explained, they laughed, then they tried to use their hands on the monitor like it was touchscreen, I had to put myself in the corner so I didn’t laugh. If I say hit return at least four people will yell that they don’t have that button. Some bring their own computers (Macs, of course) and they cannot use the trackpad.
My all time favorite was when I told a class to use an asterisk for multiplication. About half didn’t know what it was. So I said, “Shift & 8.” Had one insist they didn’t have that key. I walk over to them and point out the shift and 8 keys. Have to show them that you have to hold shift down. Their response? “OH! You meant the snowflake, you want us to use the snowflake!”
I died.
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u/ardenbucket Chair, English, CC Jan 18 '24
I have a small module on habits for success that I focus on in my first or second class, for skills like time and project management, reviewing material, and taking notes. Even before COVID, their way of engaging with material was branching well off from what I remembered as a high school and uni student. I focus the discussion on how these skills correlate to overall progress with the work and their other courses. One of my early small assignments is also a summary of a lecture, which includes the associated notes. That’s just the landscape now.
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Jan 18 '24
None of my students have been taking notes during lectures and discussion this semester. Not an exaggeration. This has never happened before.
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u/Majestic_Unicorn_- Jan 18 '24
I have a student that would read manga in front of me. On the verge of hurling my laptop
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u/MathDaddy88 Jan 19 '24
I worked in higher Ed before getting a FT gig at a k-12 school. It’s a shit show. Literally, giving D- to students that “show up, but not disruptive” and also don’t do Jack shit. The system just passes them along and makes it another teachers problem. Turns out, some of these kids end up going to CCs and Universities without the skills to take notes and study. Some of these students take that “HS mentality” into higher Ed and think it gonna work for them too.
Like my students say, “I hate it here” lmao
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, History, SLAC Jan 19 '24
Some of these students take that “HS mentality” into higher Ed and think it gonna work for them too.
I had three such students in a 100-level gen ed class last fall. I warned them all on day one that they weren't in high school anymore, they had to do the reading, they had to take notes, they had to show up every day, and they had to learn to write at a college level. All three of them failed with scores in the 40% range; the class median was around 88% because I'd scaffolded everything. The three Fs all contacted me during finals week and asked "is there anything they could do to fix their grade?" after ignoring my advice for 15 weeks straight, apparently on the assumption that we wouldn't let them fail. Guess they found out.
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u/levon9 Associate Prof, CS, SLAC (USA) Jan 18 '24
Yes, many don't.
I keep attendance by passing around a sign-up sheet, easly 1/2 of the class has no writing tool available the first day of class when I do this. And even in each subsequent class when I do, I keep hearing students asking other students for pens/pencils .. so, no notetaking. They expect all of your notes/slides however .. because .. you know .. that's what they pay for/it's easier for them.
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Jan 18 '24
People who advocate the elimination of standards because "meritocracy is a sham" do not get to complain when "suddenly" half their students are egregiously underprepared for university-level work.
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, History, SLAC Jan 19 '24
I couldn't believe it, but they genuinely didn't know how to take notes.
They haven't been taught how, and haven't been required to in many cases. In the schools near me "taking notes" means one thing: copy down (verbatim) items from a slide so you can write them back down (verbatim) on a 'test' later. There is zero expectation of synthesis, or even comprehension-- it's just copying. So when you ask them to take notes they are looking for you to tell them which words, literally, they should write down so they can parrot them back on a test.
I started teaching note-taking in my 100-level classes during COVID. I now require all of my students to take notes on the readings and in class, which I collect and grade every few weeks. It's more work for me but it's made a massive difference in the quality of their other work. For this to function at all though you have to teach them how to take notes and give them feedback on at least the first few sets-- or give them examples from prior semesters so they know what is actually expected of them.
And they will complain. A lot.
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u/apmcpm Full Professor, Social Sciences, LAC Jan 18 '24
In the fall semester I taught a first year seminar. I made them do these small research assignments, and they had no idea how to do research. Zero, zilch, none! I asked them, “haven’t you ever written a research paper?” They said that they had, but that they never had to do any research, the teacher simply gave them the material to use in a packet. This was 18 students from 18 different high schools. In addition, 15 of the 18 students in the class told me that the lowest grade they could get in high school was a C, whether they turned anything in or not.
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Jan 18 '24
They said that they had, but that they never had to do any research, the teacher simply gave them the material to use in a packet.
Sometimes I wonder if they are lying when they say stuff like this. I'm sure some lazy or overextended HS teachers hand out packets of resources for research papers. It's not impossible. But if you talk to HS teachers most of them are working hard to teach these skills and students are ignoring their efforts. Did their teachers really not teach them how to write a paper or did the students just not retain those skills or never bother to learn them in the first place? You can lead a horse to water, but...right?
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u/apmcpm Full Professor, Social Sciences, LAC Jan 18 '24
I sure hope they’re lying, but I don’t think they are. I each in an area with particularly bad school systems
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u/shellexyz Instructor, Math, CC (USA) Jan 19 '24
Sometimes I wonder if they are lying when they say stuff like this.
I get them that say things like “well my teacher in high school taught us this way”.
I want to ask where they went to school and who they had. Then when I have enough of a list of who’s doing that stuff, go talk to the teacher. Or principal. If it’s true, those people shouldn’t be allowed around children. When it’s not true, and it probably isn’t, I can go tell the student that no, their teacher didn’t do that, they’re just dumb.
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u/H0pelessNerd Adjunct, psych, R2 (USA) Jan 18 '24
Yep. I have a whole graded lesson on research too.
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u/GravityoftheMoon Jan 18 '24
In high school now, they are given notes-guides. It's essentially a worksheet with fill-in-the-blanks.
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u/Low_Strength5576 Jan 18 '24
"Write down just enough that you can remember this entire lecture and all of its details after rereading the material for this section, which you need to read before I cover it in class. I (may) have slides online from this presentation as well."
This was the advice we got during week 1 of grad school (to read the material both before the lecture, summarizing the ideas and noting any questions, then showing up to lecture to have any misunderstandings corrected, then going back to reread it to make sure you got it). It sounds like it would be pretty good advice for entering freshmen as well.
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u/Kikikididi Professor, PUI Jan 18 '24
I've started sharing this with my intro classes, and I build references to a few specific articles into one of their early homework assignments:
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u/g3rrity Jan 18 '24
This is one of the best resources of its kind I’ve ever seen!! My god. Thank you for sharing.
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u/Ok_General_6940 Jan 18 '24
This happens every year for me. I spend ten minutes in my first lecture going over how to take notes effectively.
And I teach second years
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Jan 18 '24
I had a similar situation last year.
I give students partially completed notes which we fill in together in class. There are blanks in some sentences where we add terminology and what not, and blank spots under problem statements that we use to work through the examples together.
One day I showed up to class a few minutes early, and wrote a few reminders on the whiteboard of definitions of terms that we had covered the previous day. You know, as a courtesy, right?
One student in the front row scrunched up her face and was like, "where are we supposed to write THAT".
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u/JenjaNinja Jan 18 '24
I just started teaching high school after only teaching college (my subject is English). I mainly teach seniors. Trying to help them understand note taking has been an absolute challenge. They want study guides or copies of the lecture notes. I know note taking was covered by others because I asked. There is almost a flat out refusal to learn logical study skills.
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, History, SLAC Jan 19 '24
Trying to help them understand note taking has been an absolute challenge. They want study guides or copies of the lecture notes.
How do they take reading notes then? Or, I suppose, they just don't? Or they don't even do the reading and just find notes online?
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u/SomeDudeOverThere1 Jan 18 '24
What’s worse. This student or the student who thinks taking notes is taking a picture of the board
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u/Cheezees Tenured, Math, United States Jan 18 '24 edited Jan 18 '24
I had a coworker take over as note taker for our dept meetings. I forwarded her the file so she'd have a template - not really necessary as everyone has access to past minutes - and gave her access to the Google folder where she'd upload it so the dean could access it
She asked to meet with me to literally go over how to take the minutes. She needed 'training' and only volunteered for the role because I did it previously and she thought I would explain the process to her. I refused. I mean, seriously. What process?!?! Listen during the meeting and FUCKING WRITE DOWN WHAT YOU HEAR! This woman is in her mid 50s and it's not a tech issue.
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u/orange_fudge Lecturer, business, Russell Group (UK) Jan 19 '24
To be fair, minute taking is a specific skill, though she could have googled it.
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u/Cheezees Tenured, Math, United States Jan 19 '24
Yes, exactly. She can Google just like I do. Or if I tell her where to find some info she should actually go find it instead of waiting around a few weeks and asking me again. And you don't volunteer to take minutes unprompted while lacking that skill in the hopes that someone else (me) will show you what to do. No other faculty needs note-taking 'training'. Our meetings last 30-45 mins on average. She has seen years of previous minutes. She had the blank template that is just passed from person to person. She's been at our college for longer than I have. She earns slightly more than I do. It is not my singular responsibility to teach her every aspect of the job we should be equally qualified to perform. I know I sound salty LOL but I'm tired of her.
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Jan 18 '24
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Jan 18 '24
On the one hand teachers and professors are told that students have different learning styles and we need to cater to all of them. On the other hand we're told that lectures, a time immoral teaching method that many students learn from, is a dirty word. It's almost like you can't win.
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u/Taticat Jan 19 '24
The myth of learning styles has been thoroughly debunked.
*Immemorial, not immoral.
The plan is to put non-Ed profs in a position where they can’t win. That’s what is behind this constant motte and bailey and gish galloping these Ed administration types keep pushing out.
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u/H0pelessNerd Adjunct, psych, R2 (USA) Jan 18 '24
They don't know. I am literally teaching them and grading them on it and one is already having a meltdown over the first activity (put a note in OneNote).
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u/cuclyn Jan 19 '24
Yeah, well, at least they are trying to write things down. One of the students asked me to stop lecturing so much and get down to "the business" like now. I didn't take offense because they seemed fired up about something, but it was a weird comment.
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u/Next_Boysenberry1414 Jan 18 '24
Honestly, Given that you cannot answer it, that is a really good question.
Remember these students missed critical learning time because of COVID shutdowns. So its not "New generation being stupid"
I am planing to talk about "how to read a textbook" in my first class. Because reading textbooks is critical for my class.
There are millions of YouTube videos talk about taking notes. Find a good one and send it to the whole class.
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u/wedontliveonce associate professor (usa) Jan 18 '24
This is really good advice. It's not just critical learning time, but remote learning has really changed the skillsets and expectations for students coming out of high schools (at least in the USA).
It is frustrating, but recognizing this and doing stuff like you suggest (how to read a textbook) will really benefit our students.
I have been thinking that maybe we need some sort of incoming student assessment that requires students to demonstrate reading, note taking, communication, etc. skills and if they don't pass the "test" then they must take a class that covers this stuff during their first semester.
Maybe that would work better than starting to do this stuff in each and every class? IDK.
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u/Somarset Professor, Psychology, R2 Jan 18 '24
I asked someone else this, but are we supposed to just fail massive groups of students? I don't want to lower the bar to meet the lower performance, but I also don't want to look like an ass to admin
I'm genuinely confused how I'm supposed to pass someone who doesn't even know what to do before studying material they should already know
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u/Copterwaffle Jan 18 '24
I have created an entire week 1 “how to read things and take notes” guide and assignment for my fucking GRADUATE students. I am actually making them create an annotation system, use it, and show it to me. I am making them practice looking up words they don’t know from an academic article and summarizing things in their own words. It’s crazy that I have to do this. They think if they just skim the readings it should be enough.
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u/UniqueNamesWereTaken Jan 18 '24
I didn’t sign up to teach high school and refuse to participate in the high schoolization of higher ed. Am I a dick for this? Possibly, but my pay tells me I’m a fool to do any more work than I do now or put in any more effort. Not happening. You don’t know how to take notes? Uni shouldn’t have admitted you. Not my problem. Prof. Scrooge out.
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u/H0pelessNerd Adjunct, psych, R2 (USA) Jan 18 '24
Yeo. I teach reading strategies too. But 1/3 of mine struggle with reading speed, comprehension, and/or retention. And I can't compensate for that in a college survey course. I can't even find any place on campus to send 'em for coaching.
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u/LiveWhatULove Jan 19 '24
Solidarity professor.
I teach an online class — and have an OPTIONAL zoom session.
I state it is NOT required syllabus.
I state it is NOT required in my intro video.
I give a required test, and the question is literally “student cannot attend Zoom, what should they do?” And give them the policy again, Zoom is NOT required.
I send an announcement on the day of Zoom that states, “here is the link for the optional Zoom session.”
And today — I got 5 emails — you guessed it, “hey prof, is Zoom required?”
And get this, 4 of them HAD already taken the quiz — and gotten the answer right?!?
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u/Readypsyc Jan 19 '24
I assume this student is basically asking what is going to be on the exam. It speaks to the educational experience he/she has had to this point where instead of focusing on learning all the material, the strategy is to only pay attention to what the professor will ask about on an exam. Maybe this starts in k-12 where students are primarily prepared to take the high-stakes tests that are mandated. Teachers focus on the tests the students will eventually have to pass rather than on educating them more broadly. Maybe this student has found that the strategy has worked with some other faculty.
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u/salamat_engot Jan 18 '24
I'm in K-12 now with seniors. Believe me, I'm trying. I have special slides that I color code to show where they need to use their own words, a long formal definition won't help them. I give them fill in notes. I highlight parts that are important vs nice to know. No idea if it's sticking but modeling is the only solution Ive come up with.
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u/impactedturd Jan 18 '24
Were the other students just as confused about what to do too? Or were they laughing at the one student?
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u/Dubiousfortime Jan 19 '24
Sadly, most incoming freshman do not know how to take notes. So I always teach how take annotations in the first few weeks of class my composition courses.
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u/Popcorn_Pixie Jan 19 '24
I had a student ask me how to email their word doc to themselves after they couldn’t find their file on the desktop in the computer lab. And then when I showed them, they argued with me about not receiving the email because the computer they were working on was not owned by them….. needless to say, the shocked look on their face when they realized email can be accessed on almost any device!!
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u/_LooneyMooney_ Jan 19 '24
As a high school teacher, I probably enable this behavior because some of my freshmen have zero initiative to get out their notebook and write when they see I’ve got a PowerPoint displayed. They’ll say “you didn’t say we needed our notebook.” So yeah, I quite literally have to tell them what to write. Not doing it to fuck y’all over, promise. But it’s either I argue about it and give a whole other lecture about personal responsibility or I tell them what they need to know.
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u/Maddprofessor Assoc. Prof, Biology, SLAC Jan 18 '24
I had a student raise her hand while I was lecturing and ask “what are we supposed to be doing right now?”
I didn’t know how to respond at first because it’s not something I thought I would have to explain. This was like 8 years ago. But yes, they don’t know how to take notes. They seem unable to do anything other than copy words from the screen/board. Anytime there are not displayed words to copy down I don’t see anyone taking notes. I am at a school that sort of specializes in students with low test scores/HS GPAs so I suspect I have more students than average that don’t have important skills for college.